Fun stuff!

In other news, we have a couple posts in the works.

• Zephys has been putting together a “everything we’ve told you” post where he goes over just about everything we’ve told you about the game. It’ll be a handy catch-up guide for newcomers and a good ol’ review for folks that have been following us for a while.
• I’m going to be putting together another mailbag post here shortly. We’ve got a backlog of mail and it needs clearin’ out. We’ve responded to the mail we recieved that wasn’t marked as for the mailbag. But we do miss some occasionally. If we didn’t answer yours, and it wasn’t marked as for the mailbag, please ask us again or mention it in the comments here.
• I’d like to do another technical post some time. Any requests? (Something general would be good.)

So that’s that! Hope your holidays were excellent, and I hope you all have a wonderful New Year. Put your feet up and spend some good time with your family.

Remember the “Changes” post, where we said things were subject to change at any time? Consider this part two. As you’ve read, we were in the “alpha” phase, where everything was subject to change. To be more specific, that was chiefly regarding our storyline. In that regard, consider us in the “beta” phase for content. That is to say, we now have a finalized story, and other things of the like, which means I’m playing manager, and shifting gears to dialogue and other stuff, rather than assembling the core story.

Don’t get us wrong, the game itself isn’t in its beta phase–we’re still putting the sprites, tiles, and maps together, as well as the engine. So consider the project itself in a late alpha phase. Anyway, we’re lining up a bunch of updates for you guys, and you can actually expect a couple in the next couple days. That also explains why we have been light with the screenshots. We’ve overgone a complete visual overhaul, so we’re still playing catchup on some of the pixel work we had put together before. It’s going very well, and I have Pik, Gabe, and Phones to thank for that. Mr. Mars has really helped things along as well with his concept art, and ideas for the story. He’s responsible for what I think is the best dungeon in the game (don’t worry, you’ll know when you’re there). The engine’s coming along well, too. Dave‘s been working steadily the whole time.

And before you ask, yes, Chaisu has moved on to greater things. He helped us finalize a few things with the story before we parted ways. We’re still in contact, and can’t thank him enough for getting the project off the ground. He’s moved onto a career in music, and things are going very well.

Again, we’d really like to thank you guys for your support. Not to boast, but we’re putting a really neat game together here, and we can’t wait to get it to you guys. Go ahead and re-familiarize yourself with the site, click around for a few secrets we’ve added, and stay tuned for imminent updates.

That’s all; thanks folks.

Update: Google has disabled my account because the have determined that it “poses a risk of generating invalid activity”. I’ve appealed the decision, but they decided to keep it disabled. It is against their policies to tell me more information than that, so I cannot correct whatever issue may have caused the problem or even look into it. So there will be no ads unless I sign up with another company.

Hello, everyone!  This is “stitch,” of SNOBODYS, talkin’ ’bout music today.  I have a few tunes to share and some things to talk about!  Sit down, have a listen and let’s talk!

So, do you remember me talking about the Fanfest project some years ago?  During that time a good handful of music was created, including a few “remakes.”  I remade Mt. Itoi and A Ghastly Site from the first MOTHER game.  You can listen to the original Mt. Itoi right here to compare with the remake below:

I will have to post the remake of A Ghastly Site (my personal favorite) later.  For now, I would like to open up a discussion of what/how we do.  I won’t say anything yet, since the inner workings of the ways of music may only interest a select few…SO, we’re taking any questions you may have!  Please write to the M4 mailbox with all of your questions about the music, us, how we make it, influences or whatever it is you may want to know!

I am also opening up requests for song remakes of anything you may want to hear!  If you would like to hear a remix/revamp of an original MOTHER tune, let me know which one and how you want it!  Orchestrated?  Techno?  Surprise?  Please send these requests to the email adress listed above.  Thanks!

EDIT:  All of your emailed questions will be answered in the next Music update along with the randomly tackled remix for your listening pleasure. Thank you again!

-stitch

This is Zephys, of the Mother 4 team. Don’t take this as much as an update, as a personal message from myself to you. For one, if you’re reading this, you’re either on our Mother 4 website or Starmen.net, which means you’ve dug your way to a fairly hidden away portion of the internet to look into our project.

I’d really like to thank everyone for their support thus far, and I’d like to say that Mother 4′s really become a large part of my daily life. When I go to bed at night, I don’t lay awake worrying about my real, paying job, or what to get my girlfriend for Christmas, which are just as big and scary for myself as they are for anyone else. Instead, I find that a major portion of my spare thoughts go to Mother 4, whether it’s thinking over the storyline, or trying to figure out how to get everything together for our next update.

Dave and I have been working very hard on this project in the past few months, and in all reality, I do find myself coming from a 7 hour shift at work at 9 pm, getting online, and working a good 5 or 6 hour shift with Dave on Mother 4 until 2 or so in the morning. I’m not complaining. In fact, I’m doing the opposite. I love this project, and I’d love to find a way for this sweet little deal to become a real job.

Anyway, I’m tossing this personal message up to our fans, since most of my personal opinions only make it to the Starmen.net thread, and not the actual website, and I thought it’d be nice to show the world that there are real people behind this project.

Things are coming along just fine, and I truly believe that very few would find any reason to be disappointed in what we provide. I’ll be heading off to bed soon, but before I do, I’d like to give you guys a little gift as a sign of good faith; It’s the last song that popped up on my mp3 player last night before I fell asleep. I tend to forget that I have the Mother 4 soundtrack hidden away on there, so it’s always a thrill to hear one of those tunes find their way to the surface when I set it to shuffle.

I won’t say where the tune will be played in Mother 4, and the time is easy enough to figure out. Just close your eyes and give it a listen. The music in Mother 4 goes perfectly well with the world, and as much as I wish i could put you in the world now, all I can safely give you is this little taste of its atmosphere. The Snobodys really have outdone themselves with the music.

Anyway, I apologize for the stream-of-consciousness chunk there.

Here’s the song. Drink it in, fans. We’ve been hesitant to provide you a full, beginning to end song, so this is me being extra nice. Thank you for your patience.

Mother 4 may not have a true NCFC (Nintendo Community Fangame Convention) booth, but we don’t aim to disappoint.

Keep an eye out this week. As you may know, the NCFC actually began and midnight last night, but like last year, Mother 4 will be running a series of updates. Don’t expect an update every single day, but expect what you do see to be big in days to follow. Stay tuned, fans!

(All updates will be posted here on the front page, and also on this handy page.)

But before you get started, please read the Frequently Asked Questions section to see if your question has already been answered! If you’d like to see examples of the types of questions we’re looking for, check out the previous mailbag post. And keep in mind that there are some things that we just can’t tell you.

Thanks!  

Continue on after the jump for the whole shebang.

Why is development slow?

It’s slow because we’re a small group of hobbyists making a fan game in our free time. We’re not professionals, though we strive to create things of professional quality. We’re a handful of people with lives and other things to take care of, so Mother 4 does not always come first. During the past few months we’ve all had our own worries to take care of, and thus the lack of progress.

If you’re not making as much progress as you’d like, why the website?

When we made the website, we thought things would be going faster. We also wanted to open a line of communication to everyone that was separate from our topic on the Starmen.net forums. We also wanted a place for people to put the fan art (and etc.)  they had made since we had received a number of them when we relaunched the topic.

Why the Facebook page?

We were going to wait until the game was closer to completion to create the Facebook page, but one had already popped up with someone claiming to be Chaisu running it. Along with the many requests we had received to create a page, we decided to go ahead with it. The page is also a way for fans of the project to receive updates without checking the website. It also gives us a way to gauge the interest in the project by means of the number of fans.

So what’s the deal with Fan Submissions?

Fan submissions were, as stated before, meant to just be a place to upload anything you may have created regarding the project, ie. art, animation, music, or what have you. After its introduction, we received some fan art, and some fan music, and as the months went on we started receiving suggestions and various ideas for the game. This is not what we had intended the service be used for. We didn’t really know what to do with them, but most of them seemed to have a substantial amount of effort put into them, so we let them through. Now, that’s all we get. Because we can’t use the majority of the suggestions, I’m going to close fan submissions until the game launches. All submissions that are already up will remain viewable, but no further submissions will be possible.

Why did you switch from Game Maker to C++ if you knew it would set you back?

Because 1. I had hit the limits with Game Maker and trying to work around those limits was a big headache. 2. Games created with Game Maker are often perceived to have lackluster quality and be all around terrible. And that’s not what we’re going for. 3. Creating the entire engine myself allows me to fine tune every aspect of it, so I’m in complete control. It’s sort of like driving an automatic versus a manual. The automatic is easier to drive, but doesn’t always do what you want at the right time. The manual is more difficult to drive and takes more time to learn, but offers much more control over things. (Also 4. cross-platform capabilities.)

What do we do in the meantime?

I suggest you visit the topic on the Starmen.net forums. We post there more frequently to answer questions and post smaller details. Also, more than just me posts there, so you’ll get a better line with Chaisu, Zephys, etc. If you have any questions about posting there, I’m a moderator there, so feel free to send questions my way. (It’s part of my job to answer them. )

If you have questions regarding this post, please ask them in the comments section below. Other questions should be asked in the Starmen.net topic, or via the contact page depending on the subject of the question.

Thanks for being a cool bunch of people. We all really do appreciate it.

As exam season draws to a close, progress is slowly building back up to the norm, and with summer break within reach, progress should be getting into overdrive soon.

Some things to look forward to:

• A Fan Subs update is in the pipes. (Check out the new stuff over here!)
• A new Mailbag post should be coming soon.
• Some semi-big update later on!?

Some fun-facts:

• The Facebook page has 704 fans. (Or rather, people who ‘like’ the page.)
• The “Music of Mother 4” Youtube video has nearly 11,000 views.
• Over 30,000 unique visitors have visited this site each month this year.
• There have been over 100,000 page views every month of this year.
• Visitors come from a variety of countries including Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Mexico, Canada, and Australia. All together they make up roughly 10% of our traffic.

So, yeah, you guys rock. Keep up the excellence, and all the while we’ll keep trucking along.

Dave owt.

You may wonder, “Dave! What does this mean for us?” A good question! You get a slightly better organized site to view~

I’ve been going through the place and sort of reorganizing things, as you may have noticed. Check out the run down of the changes after the jump.

Changes include:

• Changed the site’s URL to mother4.andonuts.net, and in the process probably made everyone need to log in again. Report any wonkiness please. (Also note that mother4.dcmsoftware.net still works just fine.)
• Reorganized the About page to include a concise list of characters. Information will be added as it becomes available.
• Reorganized the guidelines on the Submit page to reduce the wall of text.
• Implemented a new user registration system. If you have any problems registering, please let me know via the contact page.
• Added a link to the Starmen.net Forum topic to the link buttons on the bottom of the sidebar.
• Allowed rich text documents (.rtf) to be submitted and made some adjustments to the guts of the Submitron.
• Various small changes I can’t remember at the moment.

If there’s something you’ve been wishing I’d fix about the site, now’s your time to be heard! Post your requests in the comments below, but keep in mind that I’m looking for things that need fixing or reorganizing, not so much new features.